RuPaul’s Drag Race Superstar
Mobile Game
RuPaul’s Drag Race Superstar is a mobile game with both Idle and Fashion Dress-up gameplay. With thousands of Drag Pieces to Collect, Werk Stations to run, and Fashion Challenges to dominate, players can create their very own Drag Queen and slay their way to stardom. The game has grown popularity around the world with over +1 million downloads on
My Role
Major Feature Work
From Preproduction to LiveOps — Features & Bugs. I worked closely with Stakeholders, Artists, Game Designers, and Engineers to craft, mock-up, and implement features. I was responsible for wireframes, the creation and export of high-fidelity UI assets, and implementing them within Unity alongside Engineers. I was fundamental in bridging between Game Design and Engineering, ensuring technical feasibility while staying true to design intent.
During LiveOps, I collaborated with the Game Producer to plan and rough out new features, then worked closely with Designers and Engineers to refine and implement them. I took on ownership of monthly seasonal Queen assets, their corresponding visual configuration data sets, the monthly challenge tag icon, localization, and Jira bug support.
I provided UX mentorship and readily offered feedback to improve player-facing experiences. Quick to ideate, I delivered high-quality mockups and transitioned those into polished, high-fidelity implementations that respected the game’s visual language.
RuColor - Chromas
A later feature added to the game was RuColor (recoloring), which allowed players to customize all drag pieces using a variety of basic palettes. This system was designed to be scalable, with the potential to include animated prints and unique, sellable color packs.
Star Styling - Transmog
Star Styling gave players the ability to select their desired appearance from previously unlocked looks. This feature also included a preview option to incentivize collecting duplicate cards, upgrading them, and spending in-game currencies.
Opponent Select
This feature introduced a fun and engaging way to challenge players’ knowledge of current Drag Pieces — both visually and by their upgrade level — encouraging strategic decision making when selecting which opponent to challenge.
Daily Ruquests
A player retention feature that’s used to encourage daily engagements to earn rewards. The feature was designed to be scalable, with future potential for Weekly RuQuests or Seasonal RuQuests.
Drag Haus - Guilds
While I wasn’t the primary designer of the Drag Haus feature, I contributed significantly through feedback and implementation. This made me extremely familiar with the system, setting me up for success in leading future expansions such as Drag Haus Events & Leaderboards.
Drag Haus Events & Leaderboards
Creating Guild Events and Leaderboards was a major driver of player engagement and retention. Players can now compete with other Guilds during weekly Idle Events, resulting in increased player activity and a boost in revenue.
Feature Focuses
ENGAGEMENT & RETENTION
Designed features that enhanced the core mechanical loop and were highly anticipated by the Drag Race Superstar community. These features not only improved player experience, but also re-engaged lapsed players to return and try out new gameplay.
PLAYER Monetization
The scale of monetization depended on the feature itself, but whether it was to encourage spending in-game currencies to buying promotional bundles for competitive advantages. The majority of features were designed with monetization in mind.
Feature Scalability
All features were designed to be scalable, ensuring development efforts could be reused or reskinned for future content. Scalability allowed for more efficient updates and consistent long-term engagement.
Information Architecture - PreProduction
Mapping out the flows and area of the core gameplay was important, especially with two distinct playstyles: Idle and Fashion. It was established early on that the loop between the two modes needed to be obvious via the rewards which were granted, which encouraged players to switch modes periodically to keep gameplay fresh and engaging.